Weight alone is not a clear indicator of good health as weight does not distinguish between mass from body fat and mass from muscles. Therefore, weight of a person is not regarded as the sole test to determine the overall health of the person, as a person's weight often cannot indicate whether an individual is physically fit as compared to an individual that is overweight. A medical condition called obesity is a condition in which an individual has too much fat that puts the individual at risk for many serious medical conditions.
There is strong evidence linking cardiovascular disease, diabetes, certain forms of cancer, and many other diseases to obesity. Obesity partially contributes to about half of the chronic diseases. Weight alone is not a clear indicator of whether a person is obese. Common methods in health management concerning detecting obesity are based on measuring the weight of a person as well as inspecting the figure of the person as. Abdominal size or weight or both are widely used as an index for evaluating the figure and physique of a person. For example, if a person A and a person B were of the same height, if person A weights more than person B, then in certain instances, person A would have a higher degree of obesity than person B.
Body composition analysis plays an essential role in identifying someone as obese. Body composition includes identifying muscle mass, bone mass, organ mass, body fat mass, and the like. Analyzing a person's body composition often provides evidence as to the level of physical fitness of a person as well as whether a person suffers obesity. The ability to detect obesity can potentially help the person avoid lifestyle-related diseases so as to maintain good health.